Journey

What I built

• Solo: I designed and built the complete MEN-stack application myself — EJS views, Express routes, middleware, controllers, Mongoose models and utility functions, with MongoDB Atlas as the primary data store.
• Built listing CRUD flows with owner-only edit and delete authorization.
• Implemented signup, login and logout using Passport Local and persistent MongoDB-backed sessions.
• Added image uploads through Multer and Cloudinary.
• Added Joi validation for listing and review input.
• Implemented user reviews with author-level deletion controls.
• Added category filtering across listings.
• Integrated Geoapify geocoding and stored GeoJSON coordinates for map display.
• Added interactive listing maps using Leaflet and MapLibre.
• Deployed the application on Render with MongoDB Atlas.

Architecture

Browser
  → EJS views
  → Express routes
  → Middleware
  → Controllers
  → Mongoose models
  → MongoDB Atlas

Image upload → Multer → Cloudinary
Location → Geoapify → GeoJSON coordinates → Leaflet / MapLibre

I separated routing, middleware, controllers, models and utility functions so the application could grow without keeping all backend logic inside app.js.

What I learned

Journey was my first serious backend-focused project where I had to connect the pieces instead of following isolated tutorials. I learned how authentication, authorization, sessions, validation, file uploads, database relationships, third-party APIs and deployment interact inside one application. I also learned that most backend problems are not about writing an individual route — they are about keeping data flow, permissions and error handling correct across the whole system.

Journey is the project that moved my backend knowledge from individual tutorials to a complete application. It became the foundation for the more complex full-stack and AI systems I built afterward.

Results and evaluation

Status

Solo project · Shipped

Deployment

Hosted on Render with MongoDB Atlas.

Core flows tested

Authentication · Listing CRUD · Reviews · Image uploads · Geocoding · Maps

What I'd change

Next steps

• Better loading and error states.
• Stronger automated testing.
• Improved mobile UX.
• More robust image handling.
• More production-oriented observability.